FRANCE: PRESIDENT JACQUES CHIRAC'S CENTRE-RIGHT PARTY WINS LANDSLIDE PARLIAMENTARY MAJORITY IN LEGISLATIVE ELECTIONS

Record ID: 640702

  • Title: FRANCE: PRESIDENT JACQUES CHIRAC'S CENTRE-RIGHT PARTY WINS LANDSLIDE PARLIAMENTARY MAJORITY IN LEGISLATIVE ELECTIONS
  • Date: 18th June 2002
  • Summary: (W7) PARIS, FRANCE (16 JUNE 2002) (REUTERS) SLV SUPPORTERS AT THE UMP HEADQUARTERS (SOUNDBITE) (French) (UNIDENTIFIED SUPPORTER SAYING "Long live France, long live Chirac, long live Raffarin."; SKV SUPPORTERS AT UMP HEADQUARTERS CHEERING (5 SHOTS) (SOUNDBITE) (French) PRIME MINISTER JEAN PIERRE RAFFARIN SAYING "It's a success for union and confidence, union and confidence between the government and the president, union and confidence between the government and the Parliament, union and confidence between the French and our action". MV SUPPORTERS CHEERING RAFFARIN (SOUNDBITE) (French) RAFFARIN SAYING "We will assume our obligation to action. We have listened to the message from the French. I know we have the obligation not to disappoint. Elections do not erase problems. We will work to simplify and improve the life of the French". SLV SUPPORTERS CHEERING RAFFARIN MV MEDIA AT SOCIALIST PARTY HEADQUARTERS MV DISAPPOINTED SUPPORTERS CHEERING THAT LE PEN WON NO SEATS IN PARLIAMENT (2 SHOTS) (SOUNDBITE) (French) UNIDENTIFIED SOCIALIST SUPPORTER SAYING "I would have hoped for more but now we have as France which is French blue all over. It is French blue because now the right has all powers, and there's no one to oppose it." (SOUNDBITE) (English) FORMER DEFENCE MINISTER ALAIN RICHARD SAYING "The right as a whole has won with a margin, not a very wide one. The margin seems to be basically fifty four to forty six. So it's a matter of one or two million people changing their vote. What is striking is that the right has not made a plain announcement of their clear intentions." SLV SOCIALIST SUPPORTERS AT PARTY HEADQUARTERS. nitials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 3rd July 2002 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: PARIS, FRANCE
  • Country: France
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA9GQCXK6UIN8AL48UQ4DLKV0BE
  • Story Text: The French right has scored a smashing win in the final round of the legislative elections.
    French President Jacques Chirac's centre-right won a landslide parliamentary majority on Sunday (16 June 2002), trouncing the left wing that had controlled the National Assembly for the past five years, according to exit polls.
    Chirac's Union for a Presidential Majority (UPM) and allies would win 385-399 seats in the 577-seat lower house against 178-192 for the Socialists. The far-right National Front won no seats at all despite its leader Jean-Marie Le Pen coming a shock second to Chirac in a presidential election a few weeks ago.
    Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin was exultant when he addressed supporters at the UMP party headquarters, minutes after the results were known. He called the right's victory "a success for union and confidence".
    "Union and confidence between the president and the government, union and confidence between the government and the Parliament, union and confidence between the French and our action", he said and added he was aware the right had now the obligation not to disappoint the voters.
    Around a thousand supporters had gathered at the Maison de la Chimie, the UMP headquarters, to celebrate the triumph.
    At the Socialist Party headquarters the atmosphere was far gloomier, and none of the party's leaders showed up to join the disappointed supporters. The Socialists and their Communist, Green and other allies together had held 314 seats by the end of the previous legislature against 245 for the mainstream right.
    If confirmed, this swing to the right would give the centre-right its biggest parliamentary majority since 1993 and offer Chirac a strong hand to implement pledged tax cuts, a loosening of labour laws and a state pension reform. The result had been widely expected after parties supporting Chirac, who had trounced Le Pen by four votes to one in the presidential runoff on May 5, took a comfortable lead in last Sunday's first round of the parliamentary election.
    The electorate flirted with far rightist Jean-Marie Le Pen in the presidential race two months ago but then either scrambled back to the traditional middle ground or spurned the ballot box after a mass of street protests against extremism.
    Most people lost patience with the paralysing cohabitation between the left and Chirac, who squandered his first chance of ruling in 1997 by calling an early election in which the left bundled his conservative allies out of office. That reversed the right's 1993 victory, the conservatives' biggest ever win with 472 seats against just 80 for the left.
    This year's Le Pen upset provided Chirac supporters with a convincing argument to take into the parliamentary elections.
    They said any new, left-right cohabitation stalemate would only sow the seeds of a future Le Pen resurgence.
    The victory of Chirac's camp marked the latest step in the mainstream right's advance across western Europe, where centre-right parties have defeated left-wing governments in Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands and Portugal and may well win in Germany in September.
    Despite repeated calls from politicians from all sides that voters should shake off their apathy and go to the polls, abstention hit record levels. Pollsters estimated it at 38 percent.
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